Friday, August 16, 2013

What's to be done? We have simple Ans. Prioritizing your economy. You must understand there are things you needed them now, but you don't need them later or there are things you needed them later but you don't need them now. Human economic activities have been like this from antiquity to our modern day. It was two or three months ago when I debated a Kenya brother who from my understanding wants to paint KENYA'S political development as something only understood by Kenyans, not by outsiders. I said he must be partially true but as an educated person I don't think I should be a Kenyan to understand Kenyans politics, and problems. I challenged him; I give a brief comparative history: Kenya and Singapore. Two countries same political backgrounds, both colonies gained independence from the British in the same year decolonization was spreading like wild fire in Africa. Both countries by small margins inherited the British parliamentary system of government. So what happened? Ans. Singapore with little natural resources invested its money: on education, Health industries, infrastructures, electronic manufacturing, light industries, ports or harbors, as a result of these investments, now the citizens of Singapore enjoy annual income US $ 12-14 thousand dollars per a year. Singapore is now leveled as second economy; it is an emerging economy in the category of what we called the “Tiger economies": Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and China. The same thing could be said about Chinese emerging economy. Since the great leap forward Chinese have been riding bikes for forty years to save money for latter-day. Look where china is today. Is it a miracle? or “Dubida” Amharic for “sudden fortune” and where's Kenya in all these? Well, Kenya is still in the third world mantra, unable even to provide Health, universal education for its citizens, marred in inter-ethnic violence, dependence on quasi industries like tourism, wild animals, with corrupt system, its economy in shamble, paralyzed, unable delivery even basic services to its constituents. The example I gave here are not the full picture of the country, it goes on, on. Shall food on the table supersede all those good values we enjoy here in the west? Was a question asked by a friend, I wanted to answer it at the last paragraph, it depended on the status of persons in the west: there are economic refugees, social and cultural refugees, political, refugees, marginalized tribal groups or ethnic groups from their home countries, who had no ideas about how towns, cities, built, how the west was built, how civilization was organized and carried out. All these groups instead moving forward, renewing their broken homeland they have left behind, are confused, shocked owed with abundant materialism, submerged into cultural imperialism they had no clues where to begin with and how to get out of the traps they were in, they are on the end of the roads, to nowhere bridges. For these groups, identifying themselves in one of these categories I have mentioned important, as linchpin, into any socio economic paths. Mind you even you had a private jet here in the US, does it make you any different from people you left behind? May be, just a little. I don't want to minimize personal pleasure one's gets from material things. And I don’t want you bother yourselves answering it either. The question is does your material satisfaction satisfies others? I think the Ans. is No, which is my answer. As said prioritizing important, the other day I was talking about jets the Ethiopian government bought , I said I don't know why we should need all these expensive airplanes, when there are lots of alternatives money should be spent on, allocated to fight such things as: poverty, eradication of illiteracy, infrastructures building, water purification, so on. But on the other hand I understand it better than most, it was an Ethiopian thing called "Gura" oh yes the will of Gura, it is cultural thing. It is showmanship. But buying expensive stuffs for the sake of showmanship, can takes us no where. Specially when we don't make the products we are buying. Always remember there are things you needed them now, but you don't need them later, there are things you needed them later, but they you don't need them now. It is called prioritizing your assets.